Holly Thompson, author and Regional Advisor of SCBWI Japan, blogs this week about the conferral of a 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award on Japanese author Nahoko Uehashi. The translator of Uehashi’s acclaimed Moribito novels into English is Cathy Hirano. Holly shares here her post about the Moribito books, Cathy’s translations, and the prospect of more children’s and YA translations from Japan to come! Thank you Holly!

Cultural anthropologist Nahoko Uehashi’s Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit captivated me when I first read it—her fantasy world derives from ancient Japan and is rich with cultural and ethnobiological detail. That her complex work was accessible and moving in the English language owes much to the deft work of translator Cathy Hirano and the creative and thorough editing by Arthur A. Levine Books editor Cheryl Klein (visit her blog). Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for outstanding translation in 2009, and Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness was awarded a Batchelder Honor in 2010. Kaisei-sha is the publisher of the Moribito series in Japan. Congratulations to all!

Currently Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit and Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness are the only books in the series available in English, but, thanks to this Hans Christian Andersen award for Nahoko Uehashi, hopefully more of her books will become available in English.

*****

In the Classroom

Some material for teachers to share with students on the Moribito books and on the fascinating process involved in translating these complex novels might include the following:

Surely the Hans Christian Andersen Award will result in more well-deserved worldwide attention on Nahoko Uehashi and her works. Let’s hope there is also a powerful ripple effect with more attention paid to translation into English of Japanese literature for children and young adults.

A well-deserved prize–they really are so incredibly well-translated–not only does she capture the characters personalities the way they sound in Japanese, but the writing style also comes through so nicely.

Really hope any subsequent Moribito books will be better marketed to the adult sector of the YA market…they really would appeal far more to adult fantasy readers than Scholastic seems to think. It always amazes me how no one in the U.S. seems to have heard of the series when there’s such an intensifying interest in Japanese fantasy novels. Just because there are young characters in a story doesn’t mean that it should immediately be labeled as juvenile book, and plenty of readers are eager for a female protagonist who isn’t 16. There’s such a hunger for good stories in this genre, and such a lack of well-written books…I think the series could really take off if better marketed online.

I’m really sad, that only 2 of 9 books of Moribito series were translated in English. I read them already twice and really really want to know what will happen in the others. The translations are so good that you can really think you’re reading in japanese 🙂 Does anyone translate the others? Please.

Moribito is one of my favorite series of all time. I was very disappointed to find out that Scholastic stopped translating the books due to “low sales”. My hope is another publisher would pick up the series and start translating the books into English again.